Chapter I

Amid the “No Child Left Behind” initiative of President Bush, on 14 June 2001 the U.S. Senate approved a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Buried in the Senate bill was a short amendment championed by Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania reflecting language buffed by Phillip Johnson, so carefully worded that even the liberal Senator Edward Kennedy (1932-2009) thought it just fine and the eight Republicans who opposed it did so only because they saw the whole measure as but more unwarranted federal intrusion on local control of education, Holden (2001c) and Witham (2001).

Here was the Scalia freedom of inquiry carte blanche bearing fruit:

It is the sense of the Senate that: (1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and (2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject. NCSE (2002).

Knowing the history of who had been making such overtures over the years and how pliable such terms as “data” and “testable theories” could be when applied out in the Kulturkampf hinterlands legislative and academic backers of Intelligent Design seldom frequented, science watchers took note, like Robert Park (2001) frowning briefly at the American Physical Society. A further hint about the special perspective of some of the legislators might have been another “sense of the Senate” clause tucked in the draft, one advocating Bible teaching in public schools that identified the Bible as “the best selling, most widely read, and most influential book in history,” US Senate (2001). Because the House version of the bill contained no such sentiments there was intervention time before a compromise was drafted, Fletcher (2002), Palevitz (2002) and NCSE (2002a).

A protest letter by dozens of science organization presidents offered in Lamphere et al. (2001) did not faze John Boehner and Steve Chabot backing the Santorum Amendment in the House, but after some rewording to render it less evolution-centric, the Santorum grenade was packed off to the Siberia of the “Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference,” where this “Sense of the Senate” factoid relating to the legislative history of the bill carried no actual force of law:

The conferees recognize that a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society. NCSE (2002).

Pigliucci (2002a) lamented the time lost from the “foolish complacency” of evolutionists in not attending to the rise of ID lobbying efforts like the Santorum Amendment, but saw a positive sign in Alters & Alters (2001) Defending Evolution aimed at both students and teachers. Though whatever policy tweaks taking place in science education policy from the evolutionary side down still had to deal with the reality on the ground, where conservative politics and religious concerns were still planting fresh mines to step on.

Popular media coverage of the subject floated around these issues, of course, and exhibited all the limitations of non-scientists trying to grapple with the core challenge of the Santorum Amendment—namely, the legitimization of ID as science through political fiat. CNN’s old Crossfire series was a case in point, CNN (2002). In May 2002 liberal Paul Begala and guest Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State squared off against conservative cohost Tucker Carlson and guest Ken Connor of the Family Research Council (soon to leave the FRC to direct his lawyer skills toward promoting conservative cultural values at his own “Center for a Just Society” in 2004).

Connor no doubt believed it when he said “evolutionary theory is supported by very weak scientific foundation” but neither Begala nor Lynn were quick enough on the factual draw to hit home effective replies within the back-and-forth framework of the format, such as the philosophical derailment Carlson pulled when he complained that Lynn sounded too certain on facts like our genetic similarity to chimpanzees because evolution was only “a theory” that had yet to be “proved.” Clearly, remedial science education on the fly was no more practical on Crossfire in 2002 than it was on PBS’s News Hour in 1998 (per P-E back in section 1.3).

However symbolic and nonbinding the Santorum Amendment may have appeared, Meilke (2001), Branch (2002a) and Pigliucci (2002a) all spotted how this was being received by antievolutionists. While Answers in Genesis got the facts straighter for a change and saw its omission from the final law as a defeat for creationist education goals, Matthews (2002), most Kulturkampf antievolutionists were not so observant. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas believed it vindicated the efforts of the 1999 Kansas School Board (Willis’ Big Bang free baby). Phyllis Schlafly (2002) thought the law now mandated the Santorum language and citizens in New Mexico used it as justification for intelligent design to be taught in schools.

The Puget Sound turned into a major source of mulch for all this fertility. Phillip Johnson (2001e) made no mention of his role in drafting the specific Santorum language as he sang its praises, while Discovery Institute (2001b) played the Santorum Amendment as a great stride forward, now that Congress had “voiced its support for teaching ‘the full range of scientific views that exist’ about evolution. That includes both scientific criticisms of natural selection and random mutation as the mechanism for evolution as well as scientific alternatives to Darwinism such as intelligent design theory.” Thereby bypassing the fact that at no time had the Santorum language ever specified the range of those “scientific views” (or defined standards by which such things could to be determined) let alone explicitly include Intelligent Design among them.

That the Discovery Institute and its followers read the matter that way was plain enough, which only fulfilled the expectations of ID’s critics like the NCSE who saw it as the camel’s nose poking under the tent. Though whether it would be a one hump ID dromedary only, as posed by Santorum & Petri (2002) in their Senate remarks (Thomas Petri of Wisconsin also served on the DI board at the time) and John West (2002a) for the WorldNetDaily audience, or a two hump Bactrian species that would saunter on past the arbitrary corral of ID to “teach the controversy” more broadly via Kent Hovind or Answers in Genesis was again a distinction that never occluded the highly focused DI periscope.

As for camels passing through needles, the DI’s Chapman & DeWolf (2002, 3-4) threaded ahead with legalist dexterity: “While it does not have the ‘force of law,’ it might be said to have the ‘effect of law,’” they declared, for although “the Santorum statement does not legally mandate an even-handed approach to the teaching of evolution, or penalize failure to do so, it does provide a clear call to states to follow its policy direction in adopting science standards.” Stephen Meyer (2002) employed this parsing when he insisted it “has the effect of law,” and in the Ohio affair (to be discussed shortly) he repeated this in his Columbus debate with Ken Miller. Miller refuted that on the spot with a search of his laptop copy of the final legislation, Miller (2002b), prompting Discovery Institute (2002d) to berate him for “moonlighting as a legal scholar and political scientist” along with his refusal to recognize the apparent sagacity of their interpretation of the Santorum clause. Clem Boyd (2002) accepted the DI version at Focus on the Family, and Boehner & Chabot (2002) weighed in for their Ohio constituents with a letter to the Ohio Department of Education that firmly declared “the Santorum language is now part of the law.”

These faulty signals flitting along the Kulturkampf grapevine brought “grief and discord” to a small rural town in Montana when Rev. Curtis Brickley enthusiastically lobbied the Darby school board in 2004 to include Intelligent Design under the blithe impression that the Santorum Amendment had legislated it, Evans & Branch (2004b) and Victoria Clark (2004). While the state’s legal advisors were vigorously shaking their heads “no” and large numbers of students walked out of class to protest the pro-ID “objective origins” policy, board supporters of ID channeled Discovery Institute talking points and flirted with legal advice from the Alliance Defense Fund (founded by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, and James Dobson of Focus on the Family to defend conservative Christian values).

Mindful of how much the board’s windmill-tilting was liable to cost the community in the end, the main ID proponents on the Darby board were not reelected (though not before they had approved a new creationism-friendly superintendent who was expressing doubts about carbon dating). That September, Brickley spoke at the Intelligent Design Network, New Mexico Division (2004) symposium on “Darwin, Design and Democracy V: Science Converges on Design—from Cosmology to Paleontology to Biology” where he supplied yet another measure of what distance actually separated ID interests from conservative theology with a talk on “Presupposing Naturalism: Atheism, Agnosticism and Theistic Evolution?” that warned how “theistic evolution denies a rational basis for belief in God and a basis for our faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Such were the fruits ripening on the Santorum Amendment tree as the ID movement grew increasingly disconnected from the details educators might be throwing at them, legal as well as scientific. To see why that was happening institutionally in a movement featuring so many otherwise bright and articulate advocates, it is useful to step back a bit and follow some of Phillip Johnson’s comments during this period concerning one particular topic.